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Project:
"The Center": Orange County Performing
Arts Center, Costa Mesa, CA
Location:
The complex is located on an II-acre mixeduse site, sharing a 12DO-car parking structure,
gardens, arrivals area, fountains, and sculpture plazas, etc. with a 21-story office building
being developed by the site donor. This site is
in the heart of a rapidly-growing shopping,
hotel, restaurant, and office district. Directly
across from the new theatre complex is an
existing SOO-seat theatre-South Coast Repertory Theatre-which is linked to the new
Center.
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ORaNGE -dlUNrit4RFORMfriO_
The following is a summary of the essential
facts and figures concerning the new Orange
County Performing Arts Center-the design
process for which is discussed in the accompanying article.
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rooms; 10 double dressing rooms; conductors'
rooms; 5 group dressing rooms for 30 persons
each; men and women musicians' dressing
rooms; 3 rehearsal studios plus large symphony rehearsal (black box) space; club room
and support kitchen; numerous technical
rooms and operations offices; and 4 levels of
large lobby I galleries.
Presentation Program:
The main hall will be primarily a "roadhouse," although major resident companies
will eventually take up substantial parts of the
season. The 3,OOO-seat theatre will present
symphony, musical theatre, dance, opera,
drama, film, and local-origination television.
(Additional detail follows.)
Schedule:
Construction began July, 1983. The center
will open in October 1986, after a two-month
"tuning" period.
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-CENTER
tre and drama to 42'H x 68'W for symphony
mode.
Stage Dimensions: Min. clear depth 62'6"
from house curtain line to back wall (66'0"
from stage lip to back wall). Width 129'0"
from sidewall to sidewall (69 '0" from centerline to stage right sidewall). Additional width
of 25' in stage left tracking alcove.
Gridiron: Double grid system; bottom grid
110' above stage floor.
Rigging: Manual counterweight system with
compensating cable; main curtains and special
units are winch-operated.
Lines available: 90 sets: 45' truss battens on
4 lines can extend to 70' truss battens on 6
lines.
Fly galleries: Stage Right and Stage Left at 34'
above stage level, with connecting crossover.
Pinrails each side.
Loading Bridges: I at 96' above stage, I at
104' above stage (served by elevator).
Now under construction are the 3,000-seat
multi-use hall, 3DO-seat "black box" (actually
dark red), extensive rehearsal and support
spaces, and the OCPAC administrative offices. A I,ODO-seat proscenium theatre, primarily for local arts groups use, will be built
soon. The main hall of over 240,000 sq.ft. includes a very large rear stage I scene dock;
storage areas; trap room; 6 principal dressing
Vital Statistics (Stagehouse):
Proscenium opening: Motorized panels adjustable from 30'H x 52'W for musical thea-
Vital Statistics (House):
Seating Levels: Orchestra level 1,248 seats,
Tier level 676 seats, Ist Balcony 484 seats, 2nd
Balcony 594 seats; with symphony platform in
place there are 1,148 seats on the orchestra
level.
Distancefrom balcony fronts to house curtain
line: 69' at 1st Balcony, 84' at 2nd Balcony
(Balcony rail lighting position at both fronts.)
Distance from projection booth to stage: 95'.
Distance from follow spots to stage: 130'.
Orchestra Pit: "A" lift 8'6" at c.l.-space for
35 to 40 musicians (A + overhang). "B" lift
7 '2" at c.l.-space for up to 120 musicians
Level 5 over Level 3. (See plans.) This
was eventually changed to four levels,
bringing the height of the highest seats
down. But there still were many other
concerns to work out.
The sharp angles at the edges of the
seating trays at first looked like a problem, and it did mean that the aisles were
cutting across the seating layout at an
unconventional angle. However, dividends included some nice aisle-end
seats with extra legroom and a section
of six-seat rows at each tray edge that
feels intimate and special: something
like box seats with great sightlines.
There is a relative loss of balcony-rail
lighting positions since the balconies do
not go across the house all the way; this
is somewhat made up by the good catwalk and box boom positions, although
the number of low-angle lighting positions is less than normal in a conventional house that uses them to full
advantage.
Exiting required a special interpretation of codes, resulting in permission to combine continental and conventional exiting formulas. That is,
since the "continental" populations
could exit only to one side, the remainder had to be assigned to a conventional
aisle / door calculation and extra doors
had to be provided on the single available exiting wall. This meant virtually
continuous pairs of doors on some sidewalls. Also, 40/1 back-to-back spacing
with self-rise seats gIVIng 24/1 exiting
room had to be used.
As the upper sidewalls developed,
some of the required angles created
large projecting surfaces moving sharply into the house volume, even to the
point of a slight conflict with lateral
sightlines for extreme side seats on the
upper trays. The solution to this was a
sightline "avenue" chopped into the
sidewall bumps which nicely gave us an
architectural lighting surface to receive
a custom frieze which is now the major
decorative house light treatment in lieu
of chandeliers.
Furthermore, a look at the room
shaping will show that almost nothing
lines up with anything else. Each level
Project Scope:
Three theatre spaces are included in the
complex.
6
Costs:
Phase I building and equipment budget is approximately $47 million. Current estimate for
the I,ODO-seat theatre is approximately $8 million. Design fees, contingencies, land costs,
and certain shared site development costs are
not included. Additionally, a $20 million endowment is available to augment operations.
Theatre Design & Technology/USITT /Summer 1984

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